Next budget stop: town meeting at JPS

Published 8:00 pm, Thursday, April 28, 2005

New Milford is an old Yankee town, and the fiscal conservatism that goes with that strain has remained strong over the decades.

In the last few years, however, there has been a subtle - but significant - shift in the prevailing sentiment in town regarding the use of tax dollars and the quality of education.

For decades, the consensus in New Milford was that the town needed to do pretty much whatever it could to provide a good education for its kids - while still keeping taxes at a reasonable level.

Today, the prevailing sentiment seems to be that the town needs to do whatever it can to keep taxes low - while still providing a reasonable education for the kids.

Low taxes have become king, and it's a different community because of that.

For decades, townspeople - however much they complained - would usually do what was necessary to support the schools when push came to shove. [They proved that big-time with the approval of the $65.4 million school building project in 1997 and subsequent additional funding that brought the total to nearly $70 million.]

Today, getting a proposed tax hike below a certain percentage figure - one that will "sell" to the voters - is now widely considered a higher priority than ensuring that the educational system is strong and improving.

That shift in priorities is a wonderful thing for those who want low taxes, some of whom may not have an overriding passion about giving the children of this community outstanding educational opportunities.

But it is not too wonderful for the kids, who have already suffered from four years of reductions in the school budget request and who will suffer even more if the 2005-06 budget is approved.

And it is not too wonderful in the long run for the town, which will suffer in a host of ways if it does not do a better job of supporting its schools.

How did this shift in priorities come about?

For starters, New Milford has not seen any appreciable economic development in years, which has placed an increasing tax burden on homeowners.

On top of that, the reduction in federal funding in recent years and the fiscal problems in Hartford have placed an even greater financial burden on municipalities, and New Milford is not immune from that reality.

On the local level, the Peitler Administration made some unwise choices in terms of fiscal policy around the turn of the century, including the practice of using non-recurring revenue sources to keep taxes down artificially, which gave taxpayers a false sense of the economic health of the town.

The revaluation of 2001 led to staggering proposed tax hikes in the Gambino Administration, which resulted in multiple budget referendum defeats and helped give rise to the dominance of fiscal conservatives in town government.

In 2003, mayoral candidate Pat Murphy promised to get taxes under control and - after 11 referendums the previous three years - to get the budget passed on the first try. After being elected, Mayor Murphy made good on her promise, recommending a $2.1 million cut in the 2004-05 school board request (later reduced by the Town Council to $1.4 million), and townspeople backed the budget on the first try.

Along the way, almost imperceptibly, the traditional, if grudging, willingness of townspeople to support the schools when the chips were down has slowly eroded.

Low taxes have become the No. 1 priority in the public sentiment, and the impact on the quality of education - and the lives of New Milford's young people - appears to have at least temporarily become secondary.

It used to be that town officials would agree on what was needed in terms of expenses and then go urge the public to support those expenditures.

Nowadays, officials seem to pick a percentage increase they think will pass at referendum, and the budget is simply cut to that level, regardless of its impact.

This is not to say the fiscal conservatives are all "wrong" and the pro-school lobby is all "right" - or vice versa.

These are philosophical issues, and the prevailing philosophy in town is the one favored by the fiscal right.

The reality is that the fiscal conservatives who have gained control of the mood of New Milford are correct about the lean times this town is facing. The money is just not there to support big tax hikes.

The reality is that the fiscal conservatives are also correct in their contention that townspeople will not support sizeable tax increases. All you have to do is look at the bruising budget battles of 2001, 2002 and 2003 - and all those referendums - for proof of that.

The reality is that the fiscal conservatives are correct that school officials for years have too often claimed "barebones" budgets and then found a way to pay for things, or even come back with a surplus.

The reality, however, is that the fiscal conservatives are incorrect in their contention that the cuts made in the requested school board budgets of the past few years aren't hurting the kids - and that the damage to the young people and the town isn't long-lasting.

The town has lost many of its best teachers as a result of the budget-cutting practices of recent years, which has a direct detrimental effect on students.

Electives, programs and services have been cut, meaning the kids don't have as many opportunities as they used to.

Dozens of young student-athletes no longer play sports because of the pay-to-play policy, and they are losing out on the many valuable lessons that are learned through interscholastic competition.

And the list goes on and on.

The New Milford PTO recognizes the damage that has been done, and the further damage that will be done if the $750,000 cut made by Board of Finance to the Board of Education's request for 2005-06 is upheld by the voters.

The PTO is calling for a "no" vote at the May 10 townwide referendum in the hopes the finance board will restore some or all of those dollars (see story, Page S1).

I admire the PTO's willingness to fight for the kids - not many people are doing that these days. And I, too, believe the public should be given the chance to have its say on the budget request that was endorsed by the Board of Education, the mayor and the Town Council before getting slashed by the finance board.

Looking down the road, I don't see the prevailing sentiment changing for a while.

What will it take for the education of the town's young people to again be valued more highly than low taxes?

It will require improvement in the economy in general, some good news on the local economic development front, and a sense that the town of New Milford is on more solid fiscal footing.

It will require officials and residents to look at new, creative ways to fund and support the public schools.

It will require improved communication among the key town and school officials and boards involved in the budget-making process.

It will require a spirit of cooperation, respect and trust among those officials, and maybe a return to the old "gentlemen's agreement" between the school board and finance board of a happier era.

Hopefully, those forces will come together sometime in the not-too-distant future.

And hopefully the prevailing sentiment in town will once again become one of (at least slightly) greater concern about educating the kids than about keeping taxes low.